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Marshall Thundering Herd Football: 2015 Season Preview and Prediction

By William Murphy

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Following an absolutely dominant 2014 season, the Marshall Thundering Herd looks to defend their Conference USA title and return to another bowl. 

The Thundering Herd had a simply fantastic season, losing only one game on their way to a Conference-USA title behind Conference Coach of the Year Doc Holliday. After claiming the conference championship with a win over Louisiana Tech, Marshall went on to devastate the Northern Illinois Huskies in the Boca Raton Bowl.

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For most of the season, Marshall increasingly captured national attention with each consecutive win. Not only were they garnering an impressive undefeated streak, but they were also doing it with an utter disregard, dismantling each team on both sides of the ball, leading teams by an average of over 30 points for the first 10 games.

As the wins piled up, many began to take notice, pondering if they would be able to go the whole season without a single loss. It was definitely looking that way, up until they collided with Western Kentucky, which resulted in a tough overtime loss, 67-66.

Despite dropping out of the rankings for a bit and out of the national spotlight, the Thundering Herd drove onto a conference championship and a bowl win. The season ended in triumph for Marshall, but with several key players leaving school for good this summer, many question if the Marshall Thundering Herd can replicate the dominance they maintained throughout their 2014 campaign.

Offensive Outlook

Marshall’s offense was huge to their success last season, and were commanding both on the ground and in the air. That being said, the biggest loss comes from the graduation of Offensive Player of the Year quarterback Rakeem Cato. He will be replaced by 6’5″ junior transfer Michael Birdsong, who threw 2,728 yards in his sophomore season at James Madison. Birdsong definitely has experience on his side, playing in 14 games in 2 seasons at JMU.

However, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Bill Legg will have to work a lot with him if he wants to fill the big shoes left by Cato, who holds the FBS record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass with 46, previously held by Russell Wilson at 38.

The Thundering Herd will be more than well off in the rushing category. Leading running back Devon Johnson is returning fresh off of a 1,767-yard junior season that helped to make Marshall eighth in the nation in rushing offense. In addition to Johnson, backup Remi Watson will also be returning. However, backup Steward Butler will not be joining the team next year after being dismissed following two charges of battery after he allegedly assaulted a same-sex couple in April.

The Herd will also have to work on replacing the production of leading wide receiver Tommy Shuler, who led the conference in receiving yards and made the All-Conference first team, as well as receiver Craig Wilkins and tight end Eric Frohnapfel.

Luckily, three of the top four receivers will be coming back, which includes wide receivers Davonte Allen and  Angelo Jean-Louis, who both averaged over 23 yards per reception. Below that they have a ton of depth, and will be adding top recruits Raylen Elzy, Latrell Nieves, and Leron Carn among several others.

Defensive Outlook

For the past two seasons, defensive coordinator Chuck Heater has completely transformed the Marshall defense into one of the top defensive powers in the nation. However, him and his staff face one of their largest challenges after the exit of several key defensive players.

All areas lost some big players following last season. In the linebackers, Marshall forfeits Conference-USA Defensive Player of the Year Neville Hewitt, who led the conference in tackles, as well as Raheem Waiters and Jermaine Holmes. The returning linebackers will have a lot of ground to cover, but they will luckily have a lot of support from a large group of recruits coming in at the LB position, including Devontre’a Tyler, who ranked 10th among JUCO ILB tranfers, as well as Damien Dozier, Marquis Couch, and Ty Tyler.

The defensive line will also be depleted of some huge playmakers, particularly Arnold Blackmon, who led the team in tackles for a loss (15.5) and sacks (8). Also gone are All-Conference first-team selection DL James Rouse and Ra’Shawde Myers.

Combined with the losses linebacker and of cornerback Darryl Roberts, it will be pretty tough to keep up the rush defense that the last squad had with the just those returning. Seniors Jarquez Samuel and Ricardo Williams, among others, will have to pick up the slack on the line, with the only recruit support coming in the form of weak-side defensive end Channing Hames of Arlington, VA.

The backs will have an added deficiency in experience, as only two backs, S Taj Letman and DB Keith Baxter, will be seniors. The backs, like the linebackers, will also have lots of help from recruit additions like S Reggie Rogers and CB Von Davis. With the help of a healthy recruiting class, the young defense has a lot of potential, but will need coaching and experience to lead to repeated success.

Prediction

Marshall should play through the four games before conference play with relative ease, with Purdue being the only team posing any possible challenge. In fact, they should steam role through most of their schedule. Middle Tennessee is the only team they face that had a winning conference record last season, with the rest of their season spent playing against the C-USA’s bottom half. Their biggest challenge (basically their only real one) will be a rematch of their only loss last year – an away game against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at the end of the season.

It is definitely possible that Marshall could make another run at an undefeated season, but bigger vulnerabilities on defense and uncertainty at the quarterback position allow for more chances of some slip ups. Worst case scenario would be a 11-3 season due to inexperience. However, seeing how well Doc Holliday has done with the team over the past few years, I see them achieving another 13-1 season, with regular season loss due to their vulnerabilities, but then a consecutive conference championship and bowl win.

Next: What Conference Realignment Should Look Like

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